CenturyLink says E-Rate funding should not be used to fund residential broadband

CenturyLink says a request from a consortium of parties, including Microsoft, to extend E-Rate services to rural students' homes is not in line with the way the statute was written. The telecommunication company said in an Federal Communications Commission filing that if the FCC granted the petitions, the regulator would actually cause more harm than good to the E-Rate program. “Despite good intentions, however, the petitions to use E-rate funded bandwidth without cost allocation would be inconsistent with the statute, raise too many problems, create too many distortions, and create too many risks for the E-rate program,” CenturyLink said. “The petitions also cannot be granted by the Bureau on delegated authority, but need review and rulemaking by the full commission.”